I Cut My Hand In A Piece Of Glass And I Hope The Scar Last
by Sleeponrooftops
Summary: Valkyrie never expected happily ever after but she thought it'd be easier, she thought America could fix her. She was wrong. Skulduggery tries to do everything right but he seems to keep going wrong, he thought America could fix his partner. He just needs to try harder.
1. It Must Get Lonely

It's cold outside.

Valkyrie Cain is just outside of the sanctuary, sitting on the hard ground, back supported by the concrete wall, looking over at the lake and all the kind of different trees that surround it, there are leaves on the ground, there is not even one tree that survived the forceful wind that comes all winters.

She likes the cold. Makes her feel less numb.

There is a spider on the nearest tree to her.

It's about the size of Valkyrie's hand, fingers as long as its thin and hairy legs. It walks confidently, quickly crawling down the tree towards the ground like it has a purpose.

Maybe it wants to frighten her, get her away of its territory.

"I could kill you," Valkyrie warns. "Fry you."

The spider follows its journey. Valkyrie narrows her eyes as she watches the spider walk to the girl's boot, clambering over her buckles and laces towards the tip of her toes. She wonders wheter the tiny animal understands what it's walking on, a thing that could easily squash it.

The spider stays there. It's perched on the tip of the girl's boot, perfectly content after the long track to the top.

Valkyrie stares at it for a long time, just watching it exist.

She doesn't think she can do it, living life like before Darquesse, like before she killed all that unknown and known people, like before she killed her sister.

She doesn't remember how she did it before, how she used to turn off and on the switch whenever she wanted to. Skulduggery had taught that to her a long time ago. There's a switch inside everyone's minds and when you have to do bad things, when you don't have time to think what the moral thing would be, when it's you or them, you need to turn that switch on because there are people depending on you. You can't hesitate or someone could die. It's you or them. And it's always going to be us. Has to be us.

Now, it only works sometimes.

She has to prepare for it and concentrate. Before, it was like blinking, came natural to her. But she needs to be ready. She won't be able to stand watching someone else she knows die, won't let it happen again.

Her phone rings.

She shakes her head and leans it against the wall while answering the phone, it's Skulduggery Pleasant.

He's meeting her at the Bentley in 5 minutes. They have a new case.

She closes her eyes for a few seconds,she doesn't want to get up, she feels safe when she is close to the ground, sitting, laying down, crouched. Doesn't matter.

The girl looks at the spider again. It is still there. She doesn't want to disturb it. It seems peaceful on the tip of her boot.

Valkyrie sighs. She moves her boot from left to right and the spider sways with it, unbothered.

"I'll fuck you up, you know," Valkyrie tells the spider on her boot. "That what you want? I could make it a good death, you'll never see it coming. Well I think you have like a million eyes or something, maybe you'll see it coming. Maybe dying it's painful no matter how you die. Who knows right? It's not like the people I know had painless deaths."

The spider doesn't react.

Her phone rings againg, the five minutes she had have passed away.

She doesn't pick up, let's it ring until it stops. Then she reaches out and brushes the spider off her boot before standing up.

"Duty's calling. We'll talk another time," she walks away.

. . .

An hour later they are parked in the middle of a forest within eyesight of the 3 story house of Malnan Gili. It looks like nobody lives in there anymore

The house looks unkempt, blending with the surroundings, a dull gray and soaring roof with some parts reclaimed by nature. All the windows in all the floors are mortared except the two ones that are at both sides of the front door.

The door is open.

"Get ready," Skulduggery says while getting his gun.

Valkyrie tries to turn on the switch.

The girl wonders whether he was expecting them or if the door is simply broken, after all, the inside of the house looks rather unkempt too.

They walk into a living room, there's a sofa with a messy blanket over it and the tv is playing a football match. There is definitely someone living there.

To their left is a staircase leading to nowhere because it's mortared too at what should be the entrance to the second floor. In front of them there's a large table, it has plates piled up one above the other, Valkyrie gags at the sight, there are flies flying over them.

They advance forward past the table till they reach the next room, it's a kitchen. There is someone on a wheelchair making food with their back to them.

Skulduggery glances at Valkyrie and the girl shrugs. He points the gun to them.

"I think you should do the dishes after eating that," the skeleton says after a moment.

There is a high pitched scream in the house.

...

The person turns out to be Malnan Gili and he's nothing but trouble. The guy is batshit crazy. He likes to say bible verses and he wants to play with them.

Skulduggery is mad, his gun is still pointed at Malnan, waiting for the guy to give him a reason to shoot.

His patience is wearing thin but Malnan Gili sits calmly on his wheelchair with his arms crossed and insist that he'll only give them information if they play a game.

"I like seeing blood," is all he says when Skulduggery asks him what kind of game he wants to play.

The girl knows that that's why he is getting angry.

Blood means that only Valkyrie can play. That there's nothing Skulduggery can do to switch places. That he has to watch while his friend suffers.

"For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement," Malnan says unswervingly, like he is repeating something he says all the time, hell he probably is repeating something he says all the time, he just said that he likes to see blood after all.

"What's that even supossed to mean?" Skulduggery ask, he is looming over the guy, but he doesn't seem fazed by it, neither does he care about the gun pointing at him. He is just sat there relaxed. He knows what he is doing.

Skulduggery hasn't said much about who this guy is supposed to be, the girl knows that he is the only one left alive that knows where their target, Recob Bocer, is.

He is wanted for hate crimes and the modus operandi of Recob Bocer is the same one as all these crimes that had been happening. They started about a year ago, but it has taken all this time for the sanctuary to figure out that the deaths are linked. They are all gay men and they all died in the same way, after a long torture session where all the extremities of their bodies were cut off. He is well known for doing this kind of things during the war. The killer would begin on the fingers and then he would continue on the toes until he would start cutting limbs, feet, hands, legs, arms, everything until the only part of the person left would be the trunk and the head and when he was satisfied with the job done he would leave them to bleed out. He would spend all the time he needed to make sure that the victim wouldn't die until he wanted to.

That's probably why there is a lot of time between the victims deaths.

Still, that doesn't explain why they took so long to call them to work on the case.

Malnan and Recob used to work together but parted ways when Malnan got injured, Valkyrie wonders if that's what made him end up on a wheelchair.

"In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace. Are you going to give me blood then?" Malnan ask with a smile and moves his head slightly to look at Valkyrie.

Skulduggery stays silent next to her, his gun hasn't moved an inch yet, he must be thinking on a way out of this situation.

They guy must know that she used to be Darquesse. He seems to want to make her pay for everything she has done. The girl agrees with Malnan, she should pay, torture her, make her feel the same thing she made feel to the people that died. She should suffer but never be killed. She deserves to stay alive, she deserves to carry the burden of having killed so many people, she needs to saves lifes too, maybe when she gets to the point that she has saved more people than killed she'll forgive herself.

She should agree to play the game, the man probably just wants to slice her somewhere or cut her a finger or something, she can take it. She should take it. She's been throught worse. She's been looking for something that would make her feel alive again, pain is better that numbness. It's a good time as any to start the path of redeeming herself.

They can always fix her back at the sanctuary.

"Or I could shoot you and you could just tell us where your friend is," Skulduggery says while taking a step forward. His voice low and dark deprived of emotion.

The man huffs out a breath of laughter. "Do you really think that's gonna work on me skeleton? I was the best at torturing and threatening people. Shoot me and I'll be quiet forever. I know how these things go."

The girl clenches her fists, she should be hitting him already. Keeps trying to turn on the switch.

If she would have the switch on she knows she would be hitting him with all she's got by now, pulling out an answer out of him.

Skulduggery would help her too, back then before she had left for America she knows that skulduggery would have started beating him first but not these days. He is mostly quiet now and doesn't jump so easily into action.

Valkyrie wonders sometimes if they had become bad detectives. Each one with secrets that none of them will tell the other one.

She should try to fix that.

She should try to fix a lot of things.

She knows they would go until the end for each other, that will never change, but he is mostly quiet now, like he doesn't know what to say around her, his words always calculated, jokes followed by a silence because he doesn't know how she will react, it's almost like he's trying to figure out if she is the same girl he used to know.

She's not. Skulduggery has changed too.

But people change all the time, it's normal, they just need to get to know each other again.

She grits her teeth. "Tell me what I have to do," the girl says confidently, it is as good time as any.

Skulduggery has lowered the gun and it's looking directly at her now. Valkyrie looks back at him. "It's okay," she tells him reassuringly with a nod, she'll be fine.

After a few seconds of a silent conversation, Skulduggery nods back at her. She turns to looks at Malnan, his lips are curled into a smile, his chin is lifted high and gives her a cocky wink.

He inclines forward and stretches his arm towards Skulduggery, "Can I have your gun?"

He cockes his head to the side while looking at him, there is no way he'll let him have his gun. "How do I know you won't shoot us?"

Malnan rubs at his nose and stays quiet for a couple seconds and then settles down, ducking down deeper into his wheelchair. "You do it then, pull out all the bullets from your Smith and Wesson except for one and make the cylinder spun, give the gun to the girl to let her shoot herself," he is smiling, a crooked smile that shows his yellowish teeth.

She takes the gun from Skulduggery before he can react, he's not even holding the gun tight, she has made her mind.

She can take a shot, even Skulduggery has shoot her before, she'll be fine. It's not like she doesn't deserve this.

The girl pulls out the cylinder and starts to empty the bullets one by one, her fingers precise, and when she gets to the last one she looks at Skulduggery.

He hasn't moved. His chin is dropped to his chest, gazing at the floor and his fingers are curled into a fist.

Valkyrie knows he must be thinking of the time he did the exact thing to her. He apologized but she knows that it still haunts him. He would have killed her without hesitation if the bullet would have been in the right place.

She takes the last bullet out and brings it to his lips and kisses it, ready to feel pain. She puts the bullet back in one of the chambers and makes the cylinder spun, she knows that if she lets it stop rotating there are more chances that the bullet won't hit her.

She locks the cylinder back in before it stops.

"Aim to the head, you know how to play right?" Malnan reminds her making direct eye contact with her. He is smiling still, eager to watch blood.

"Of course, I'm not stupid," she tells him while still looking at him in the eyes. Well, she wasn't expecting that, she doesn't deserve to die, that would be easy, but she won't back down from a challenge. They need the information after all.

"Good girl."

She lifts her arm and aims to her head, the look of defiant still on her face, looking back at Malnan. She thumbs back the hammer and after a second, pulls the trigger.


	2. I Miss Everyone At Once But Most Of All,

She flinches, and after a few seconds realises that nothing happened.

Fuck, she's alive.

She takes a step back, surprise written all over her face and brings the revolver down.

Malnan starts laughing "Well that's too bad, damm, I wanted to see some blood. The girl here deserved it, ain't I right?" ends with a laugh, crooked teeth showing.

Skulduggery takes the gun from her with a quick grab and shrugs his shoulders, waving the gun around. "Yeah, sure," he aims the handgun at him, "say that again and I'll shoot, I know how to play too you know? It's a funny game, I used to watch some guys playing it during the war, when the odds were so bad on our favour that they wouldn't have cared if they died," he says coldly.

Malnan lifts his arms in surrender. "Okay, calm down skeleton. One can't even joke these days with you guys,"

"No, I just don't like when you treat my partner like shit, it makes me want to hit you really hard, maybe blow out one of those fucked up teeth of yours. I like to see blood too. Have lots of experience too."

Malnan just stares at him for a moment, eyes open wide but with a boring look on them, before letting out a guffaw. "And everyone says you are scary? Please, I've done better than that when I was only a boy, starting to work with Recob."

Skulduggery fires.

Nothing happens.

Malnan starts laughing again. "Shit, boy. I must admit you got me there for a second, dead man. Almost had a heart attack I swear. Just remember, that when his heart became arrogant and hardened with pride, he was deposed from his royal throne and stripped of his glory," he lectures. A smile lingering on his face.

"We can't always be lucky, that would be pretty boring," Skulduggery answers while lowering the gun and putting it back in its holster.

"Horrendously boring," he sighs, "let me get you what you need detectives."

Malnan goes to the living room, only Skulduggery follows him, the girl is still shocked, looking at the floor, barely registering what's happening around her. She can't stop thinking what the fuck decides that she gets to live, and all the other people she encountered had to die?

She can hear Malnan taking something.

"There," he says while a thud is heard, "a deal it's a deal right? Everything you need to know it's in there. Recob it's a simple man, if something is working there ain't need to make any changes. The direction of the girl who used to sell us the equipment is in there, along with some other people who used to work with us. Most of them I believe are dead, maybe the girl is even dead too for all I know, I don't really give a fuck anymore, but if you are lucky, you'll find someone with some information."

"Why would they be dead?" Skulduggery asks.

"Ah, yeah, he likes to kill the people when he doesn't need them anymore. Like I said, he's a simple man. I am the exception as you can see. He loved me too much you know. Fucking faggot," he snorts and spits at the floor.

"What happened with you two?"

"That's for me and him to know detective, you have what you needed, now get the hell out of my house."

Valkyrie decides it's time to put her mind on where they are right now, life is not fair, shit just happens, you just have to deal with it.

She walks in just in the moment that Skulduggery decides to hit Malnan, he strikes him with a punch to the jaw that sends the guy to the floor, out of the wheelchair.

He approaches him and kneels on him, legs at each sides of Malnan. They guy tries to smash his fist on anywhere he can reach, his eyes are wide open and he draws shallows breaths.

Skulduggery simply holds the guy arms and looks at him.

Valkyrie wonders if he is going to kill him. Wouldn't be the first time he's done something like that.

Wouldn't be the last time either.

Skulduggery settles down on slamming his right fist just below the eye, on Malnans cheekbone, until he loses consciousness.

…

Skulduggery storms out of the house, door hitting the wall hard enough to leave a dent. Valkyrie is right behind him, watching him go to the bentley with long-legged strides, about to get inside when he just closes the door and folds his arms over the car to look back at her.

Valkyrie comes to a stop on the other side of the car, heart still racing, nauseous from having seen the state of the face of Malnan. Skulduggery really had beaten up the guy with everything he has.

"I can't believe you just did that," he says in a uneasy voice.

Valkyrie shrugs, "Well, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do."

"Not like that," his voice cracking slightly. He unfolds his arms and turns around, his back to her now.

"Well what the fuck did you expect me to do? We needed that information, it's not like punching him a little would have done anything," she reminds him, the sight of his face still clear as crystal.

She gaggs suddenly and turns around to puke but she doesn't end up throwing up.

"We could have come up with something else. You didn't even think about it for more than a few seconds. You didn't even give me enough time to think of something," he snapps with an exasperated sigh. With a firm hand he takes off his hat and straightens it and turns back around to look at her. "The story of the men, those who liked to play that stupid game. You used to love that story, always asking me to recount it, always telling you how you have more chances of winning if you let it stop spunning on its own."

Valkyrie suddenly feels her heart thundering in her ears and her blood going cold, body stiffening at that remark. He had been looking at the floor, there was no way he would know.

"I was observing you, I knew you'd remember that part. You always remember things like that. Things that can be useful in the future. So tell me, because I'm trying really hard here to comprehend why you wouldn't do something I've told you to do a hundred times," he implores with an aggrieved voice.

Fuck.

Valkyrie swallows with some difficulty. She presses her nails to her palms.

She grits her teeth. "He would have known," she croacks.

"Bullshit," he replies.

The girl just turns her gaze to the floor, there is no way she can get out of this now. Skulduggery won't stop until he has anwsers.

That's how it works with him, you can have your secrets and he'll be too scared to even ask, but if they are affecting your work, he won't stop asking until he has all the details.

At least that's how it was. He's been too scared nowadays to even dig deeper enough to reach emotions.

Now it looks like he's going for it. Maybe it's because she almost died.

"You didn't need to do that," he sympathizes, his voice soft and velvet now.

Yep, it's because she almost died.

"I don't wanna talk about it," Valkyrie presses her lips together, "Let's just go back, okay?" she declares, and gets in the car.

Skulduggery gets in after a moment and stays silent, not turning on the engine of the car. Just looking at her.

She just turns her head to stare out of the window.

"Enough," he says when she spends a minute trying to avoid his face, "We are going to talk and we are going to talk now." he enunciates.

She keeps avoiding his gaze, nails digging into her palm, hard enough to draw blood.

"Enough of that too," he says while giving a light slap on her hands.

She sighs, there is no way out of this.

"I didn't think he wanted me to aim to the head," she admits.

"That doesn't explain what I just asked Valkyrie," he mutters.

"Okay," she snarls, and looks at him, "I can take a shot,"

"Doesn't mean that you have to make sure that the bullet hits you, you know?"

She presses her lips together and ducks her head before glancing back at the skeleton, "I fucking deserve it anyways" she whispers.

Skulduggery stays silent for a moment, probably trying to come up with the right words.

There ain't any right words.

"I know it's hard Valkyrie, we knew the future yeah, but we also did everything we could to stop it,"

"Not everything,"

"We tried everything we could do so that you didn't need to leave this world," he explains, "I didn't want you to leave this world, you are my partner," he puts an arm over her shoulders and brings her closer to him. "I carry part of the blame too. The worst thing happened yeah, we failed, but we also saved the world, and we also saved you,"

"I had to kill my own sister, Skulduggery," she whispers into his chest.

"I know, I wish you hadn't needed to do that terrifying thing, but she is alive, she is perfectly fine now," he pauses for a moment, "you saved the world, well, kind of, you were near when it hapenned, you contributed to save the world, I guess. We tried to fix our mistake. People died, and that's on us both, not only on you, and that's why we are going to save all the people we can, and kill as many bad guys as we can. I know we've got miles to go, but we are putting our shoulders to the wheel."

They stay in silence after that.

The girl thinks all this is bullshit. She can understand him though, yeah the worst thing happened, that's on us, life keeps going on, let's try to save as many people as we can and work on our redemption, and maybe we'll feel okay with ourselves someday.

She doesn't think that Skulduggery believes his own words either. He is always angry, angry at himself, angry at the world, he knows that he too deserves all the pain he recieves.

She needs to pay for being so selfish. She could have prevented everything.

Darquesse was the rifle on the wall, and it was always going to end like that.

...

Skulduggery dropped her off at her house, giving her the night off.

She had spent all the ride back reviving the conversation on her head, her lungs seizing, barely being able to breathe through them until it felt like Valkyrie lost sight of herself. She became anxiety. Her entire identity was dripping through her fingers and no matter how many times she tried to clench her fists, she had become a vessel of numbness.

By the time they arrived at her home, she felt strangely detached from her body. The anxiety was still there, but everything else felt distant, like she was in a bubble and no sounds, no emotions, no senses could get through it, but she took gracefully that feeling, she leaned into that detached numbness. Anything was better than the paralyzing fear.

She doesn't want to get inside, Xena is not there and she doesn't feel able to drive to her parents house and mouth words, it feels hard to reach her brain and force it to think coherent thoughts.

She had come out swinging but she's still walking out with two black eyes and a split lip.

The girl gets in her car and drives, doesn't matter the direction, just driving until she can breath properly again, until there is no hand squeezing her lungs anymore.

She is functioning entirely on muscle memory, just a bystander, a passive observer to her own life. Her hands feel strange on the wheel, they look smaller. She flexes her fingers and the movement seems alien. The wheel is supossed to feel soft but she isn't feeling anything. Was that really her hand?

She puts the music on, hopping that that is going to make her feel something. She doesn't like this.

Lately she has discovered that she likes melodic hardcore, just sad music with the occasional scream that becomes such a wrenching sound that engulfs a person in pain, that it feels like it hurts physically. And that's better, this way you can identify the source of it for once.

Sad music for sad people.

Perfect combination, except for when you lose yourself too much on it and you come close to losing all grip with commonly accepted reality.

It feels like she is not even controlling her own body, she can't think, she can't talk, she can't move, all she can do is watch herself from afar.

She wants to feel.

What if she is not able to find her way back? What if she spends the rest of her life watching herself live, locked behind her own eyes, not being able to make a sound. Trapped inside her own mind, her body might as well be a statue. Maybe she is becoming one.

Valkyrie doesn't know how long she has been floating in her mind for before firm hands shake gently her shoulders and she finds herself staring into worried eyes.

"You okay Valkyrie?

Is she alright? No, fuck no, she's not alright. Very not alright. "Yes, of course," the words feel strange, she barely feels them form in her mouth, barely feels her lips and her tongue moving to make sounds.

She can barely focus on the person in front of her. When did she get out of the car?

"No, you are not," something grabs her chin, making her stare into the stranger eyes.

He's wearing a hat and a suit, she recalls vaguely that she knows someone who dresses like that.

She looks back at the thing that its forcing her to look up, it's a hand, a hand made of bones without flesh.

The hand is grippping her cheeks so hard that Valkyrie feels a sting of pain and flinches back. It fades into nothing quick. "There you are. Valkyrie, I've been holding you tight enough for it to hurt and you weren't feeling it."

"Wha- What's happening?"

"I need you to focus okay?" The stranger eyes look worried, searching for her eyes, "you are dissociating, you need to come back to reality, you need to make your way back to me." The man grabs her right wrist, moving the girls arm so that her fingers touch his silk tie. "You need to start feeling things, think about your fingers, think about how they feel when you touch something, think about how they feel when you touch something soft, it's nice isn't it? Think about it being soft, Valkyrie."

Soft things, okay. She remembers soft things of course, the skin of her father is always soft, the fur of Xena is soft. She likes stroking the fur of her dog, always calming her down, always bringing her back to reality.

She closses her eyes and focuses on her fingertips. She moves them, up and down. Up and down. They brush against the velvety tie. She is starting to feel it.

She grips it in her fist. Clings to it like it is a life jacket.

"Perfect, Valkyrie, you are doing amazing. Feel the ground now. It's solid, right?"

It is. It is solid. She wiggles her toes, feels them bump against the top of her boots, she remembers a spider was on them a few hours ago, she feels her socks, she feels her shoelaces, tied to tightly.

She feels the hand on her face. It's cold and it's rough, it feels calloused, she feels the hand against her cheek, a grip hard enough that it's starting to make her jaw ache. The girl flexes it and the fingers soften inmediately.

"Good, you are starting to feel things, Valkyrie. Can you feel the air? The wind is blowing hard isn't it? Feel it against your skin. Come on, you can do this."

She can feel cold, it's very cold. Her face and her hands are colder than the rest of her body. Her body is warm. Her hair is moving slightly, the wind is moving her hair.

She can feel the man's soft tie, she can feel her feet on solid ground, she can feel the wind bitting at her skin.

Valkyrie snapps back into reality with a jolt and panic pours down on her just as quickly.

"I-I-"

Skulduggery is in front of her.

"It's fine, Valkyrie. Just try to breathe, deep breaths. In and out. In and out. I am going to talk now, okay? Just listen to me, focus on my voice," his hand moves back to her cheek.

The girl pants in response, the hands in her lungs are back.

"You dissociated, I think you were trying to avoid a panic attack. That's why you're having one now. I need you to keep focusing on breathing, keep feeling my tie okay?" Valkyrie graps his tie tightly, it's still soft. She likes soft. Soft is a life jacket. "You won't lose touch with reality again, I promise. I know it's scary and you just want it to stop but you can't dissociate like that again. I'm right here, I'm gonna help you to calm down now, all of this is going to pass okay? I need you to let me know that you understand me, Valkyrie."

She nods weakly, she'll be fine, just has to keep breathing. Focus on that and the hand will go away.

"Good, you are doing good. My name is Skulduggery Pleasant. Your name is Valkyrie Cain. We are near the pier in Haggard. You can see the sea from here. The beautiful irish sea. There's no one here with us, just a couple more cars and a lorry. We are in the parking lot of the coffee shop you love so much. Your parents are named Desmond and Melissa and your little sister is named Alice. You have a dog named Xena."

Slowly, the panic is starting to erase. She rises his head to look at Skulduggery. His partner gives her a gentle smile when he sees the girl eyes focusing on his face. She takes a moment to glance around and takes a deep breath, the hands in her lungs gone for now.

"Glad to have you back." Valkyrie looks back at Skulduggery's worried face.

"How did I get here? How did you find me?" the girl asks confused. The last thing she remembers is listening to music.

"I don't know Valkyrie, I'm assuming that you might have wanted some familiarity so you came here. You love watching the sea," he takes his hand off her cheek, "and I was looking for you. You weren't answering your phone, so I went to your house, but you weren't there and I guessed you were at your parents. I was on my way there when I saw your car here."

She nods in understanding. The aftermath of the panic attack is taking roots in her bones. Her bones and joints ache when she sits on the floor, back supported by the left front tyer of her car.

She closes her eyes and feels Skulduggery sit down next to her.

"You better now?"

"Yeah, I think so, thank you."

"Anytime," he responds calmly.

"Whatever just happened, was it like a physic thing?" The girl swallows with some difficulty. She shivers and tugs her knees closer to her chest, looping one arm around them, "like when Finbar went into trance when he was looking for the gate for the Faceless Ones? Or my brain is just, you know, not working properly?" she asks while biting her nails.

"I think you were having a panic attack when I was bringing you home, and to avoid it your mind started to dissociate," he turns to look at her, "your brain is not broken. People who tend to have anxiety often dissociate, it's a normal thing." he reassures her.

She looks at the sea in front of her, can feel the cold breeze it carries. She hand't like that none, thought she was going to be trapped like that forever. Trapped in her own body, it made her feel like she was back inside Darquesse again, relegated to a corner in her own mind. She shudders at the memory.

"I suppose this is the first time this has happened to you," he continues, "if something like this ever happens again I want you to call me okay? I am always going to be there for you Valkyrie."

She closes her eyes again and feels Skulduggery reaching out to stroke her dark hair. She flinches at first but then relaxes into the touch. "Until the end, right?" the girl asks. She can't lose him. He is her anchor, her beacon in the dark when she feels like she can't do this anymore, When she feels like she can't do life anymore.

"Until the end."

They sit in silence watching the sea, it's cold but she doesn't mind. She's glad to be feeling anything.

"Now, come on, let's get you back home so you can rest for the night, It's getting pretty late and you need to sleep. I'll stay with you tonight. Lots of things to do tomorrow." He gets up gracefully.

She lets him pull her to her feet and guide her towards the Bentley. "What about my car?"

"We'll get it tomorrow, don't worry about it."

"Okay," she drags her feet, "you sure the thing you were looking me for can wait till tomorrow?" she asks. She is exhausted but she can pull through for a few more hours.

"Yeah, I'll send Temper."

...

Valkyrie wakes up to a buzzing, she opens her eyes, baffled for a second before realizing it is her phone that's buzzing, someone's calling her.

She looks out of the window. It's still dark outside.

"Hello?" she mumbles, sleep caught in her voice, still tired from the night before. She reaches out to turn on the light of the lamp on her desk. A soft, warm glow illuminates the room.

"Steph?" her mother voice comes out of the speakers. "You didn't came home last night for Xena, is everything alright?"

She shuffles around, turning onto her back and stretching.

"Oh shit, yeah, sorry about that mum, was just really tired and fell asleep," she lies.

"It's fine sweetheart," she says reassuringly. She falls silent for a second. "You are okay right? Nothing happened?" Valkyrie can hear a hint of worry in her voice.

The girl groans and folds her arms over her eyes.

"Yeah, yeah, don't worry ma, nothing happened yesterday." the girl mumbles. "We just had to gather some information from a guy."

She decides to get out of bed. She's not wearing a shirt at the moment. Muscles shift beneath her pale skin, muscles she's rather proud of.

She has a lot of scars. Battle scars, training scars, torture scars. Angry marks on pale skin, snaking from the waistband of her pants up to her stomach and chest, one licking her collarbone while others curl around her ribs towards her back. Others start from the base of her spine, cutting up her back.

"He lived far away, it took us a lot of time to come back home. It was really late so yeah, I fell asleep, sorry," the girl hopes her mother can't tell she is lying.

"That's good, I'm glad you are okay."

"Yeah," Valkyrie goes through her wardrobe to find her black shirt. She shrugs it on.

"You'd tell me if you weren't okay right?"

"Yeah," she finds her trousers. "Of course I'd tell you" the girl says softly. With a grunt, she sits down on the floor, putting on some socks and her sturdy boots.

"Are you coming by later to get Xena? I was hoping we could talk."

"Why?"

"Because it's been ages since I last saw you. I miss you, Steph. Your dad misses you too. Alice too."

Valkyrie frowns as she pulls at the laces of her boots. There is no way she'll tell them how much she is struggling lately. They can't bare hearing that her child is out there getting hurt, risking her life everyday. They don't need a reminder that everytime they see her daughter coud be the last time they see her.

"I don't know if I'll have time ma," it's always difficult seeing them. Hard to look at them in the eye, hard to keep to herself that she had to kill their other daughter just because she wasn't able to give up.

"Steph, please. Just for a while."

The girl sighs as she gets to her feet, rolling her shoulders in an atempt to ease the usual morning stiffnes, muscles shifting beneath skin.

"Maybe. I'll try," she answers, because she has been running away from anything good, like an escape artist daughter.

"It's going to get better okay?"

"Yeah," she puts her jacket on.

...

Skulduggery has made her breakfast. But that's not the most baffling thing, she's perplex that he actually stayed the entire night with her. Just in case she had another anxiety attack he says.

Valkyrie chews on the piece of french omelette that looks too good to be real. It even has cheese. She's sitting in her kitchen, at the little island in the middle, near the sink. The food is still steaming hot. Her stomach cramps a little, the shock of food a bit too much after having gone a day without, but the heat is welcome. She swings her feet, heavy boots tapping against the legs of her chair.

"There's been another victim."

Valkyrie looks up at Skulduggery, who is sitting across from her at the kitchen island. The man is no longer wearing his jacket, nor his hat. His clothes are remarkably clean, as always. Skull glistening in the dim light of the morning.

"Who?" the girl asks, swallowing her bite and rooting around for more.

"A young man, Tilstay Hur."

"Right." Vakyrie bows her head so her hair falls into her face, shielding most of her expression. After a couple of seconds, she peeks at the man. "We need to go to the crime scene? Or should we have gone there last night?

Skulduggery tilts his head a bit to the right side. "No. There had been a missing person report las night. Temper has found the guy."

"So, we could have saved him?" She glares at her plate. Her feet coming to rest beneath her as she hunches over her food.

"He has been dead for a few days now, Valkyrie," he says calmly.

"Okay," Valkyrie says before licking her fork clean and placing the bowl onto the island. The sky is starting to turn orange when they live the house, dawn breaking over the trees.

…

Tilstay Hur's bare torso is laying down on the floor. The head still attached to it, his mouth wide open, teeth scratching the carpet while the tongue has been pulled out of the mouth and lays between the teeth on what used to be a puddle of blood, dried now.

Valkyrie's dark eyes scan the room for anything worth of investigating. There's nothing. Just the carpet, a chair, the torso, body parts. Clothes that used to belong to the man tossed into a corner. Windows full of dust.

The girl is breathing hard, the smell of the room almost unbearable and brings the jacket up to cover her nose as best as she can.

She puts on a pair of exam gloves and crouches down to inspect the clothes. She goes to the trousers first, fingers going to the pockets. Fingertips brush against a solid surface, she pulls it out. It's a phone. She takes out a clear plastic bag out of her own pockets and deposits the phone in it, continues looking for more clues, just like Skulduggery had taught her many years ago.

She doesn't find anything else.

Footsteps come closer to her and she stands up to watch Skulduggery scan over the room himself.

"Did you find anything?"

"Yeah, a phone. Here." She hands the plastic bag to him. "I only have gone through the clothes."

Skulduggery nods and squats beside the dorso looking over it. The only marks of damage are the stumps, full of dried blood.

She goes over to the extremities, she wants to puke just from the sight. They are more bloody than they should be, looks like someone poured a bucket full of blood all over them.

She takes a hand that has a tattoo of a rose. It feels so wrong to be holding a dead man hand that has no fingers, no wrist, no arm, no body attached to it.

She gags and brings her free hand to cover her mouth with the wrist until she feels she isn't going to throw up.

Skulduggery looks up at her. "You wanna get out? We are almost done anyway."

Valkyrie nods gratefully, leaves the hand on the floor carefully and gets out.

Outside, she breathes deeply, gulping fresh air and leaving the stink of a putrefied body behind. She gets rid of the gloves and throws them on a trash can.

That didn't use to happen before.

After a few minutes, Skulduggery comes out.

"Thoughts?" He says as soon as he sees her.

Valkyrie folds her arms over each other and shrugs, "The same cuts as the rest of the victims, maybe the phone has some information."

Skulduggery nods, "I already gave the phone to an agent, they'll call us when they get something." He starts to walk to the Bentley and Valkyrie follows him.

The girl scrutinizes her brain for some kind of idea, some lead that will take them to know why the man is doing what he is doing.

"Recob could be gay, remember how Malnan called him a faggot?" she inquires.

"I thought of that, the time when Malnan got injured coincides with Recob going solo too."

"So what? Malnan finds out Recob is gay and they fight. And he just starts killing men? Doesn't seem like a good enough motive," she frowns and kicks at a rock, a little frustrated.

"Keep in mind that they used to kill for fun during the war," Skulduggery reminds her.

"But then it wouldn't matter wether he kills gay men or not."

"He could have a fetish."

Valkyrie snorts. "Yeah, now we are going to base all our leads on a fetish?"

Skulduggery laughs too and puts his right arm over her shoulders, bringing her close. "Killers Valkyrie. They get bored too."

…

She wakes up with a gasp. Her legs and arms jerking as she rips herself out of her dreams. She's in one of the couchs at her parents house. The dim afternoon light iluminates most of her family members. Orange light ghosts over her dad's dark hair, it caresses Alice's pale skin and seems to blend with the blonde, brown fur of Xena. Alice is asleep curlep up with the dog. Desmond is asleep too, head hanging over his body.

Valkyrie closes her eyes again.

There's a hand brushing through her hair. Slow, gentle strokes, caressing her head. She moves her hand, folds it over Melissa's thigh so she can hold on while she tries to sleep in her lap.

"You okay, sweetheart?" she ask quietly, not wanting to wake up the rest of the family. "Nightmare?"

"Nah," Valkyrie murmurs, "Just- felt like I was falling."

"It's called a hypnic jerk," Melissa says as she brushes her hair out of her eyes. "It happens when your mind is falling asleep but your body is till awake."

"The fuck?" Valkyrie frowns, nosing at her thigh and getting comfortable again.

"I just read about that this morning," she smiles looking down at her daughter.

"Weird,"

"Yeah," Melissa sighs and puts her hand on her shoulder, squeezing a bit. "I just wanted to talk to you. By now, I don't even care what we talk about."

"Just want to sleep more,"

The fingers still for a moment before continuing. "Okay" she says, "I'll leave you alone. Even if you were the one crawling into my lap," she adds teasingly.

She grunts and turns to her back, stretching her legs. Her mother's thigh supports her neck as she gazes up at her. Her features are soft in the afternoon light. There's a tired smile tucking at the corners of her mouth. It feels like all she does these days is apologizing to her. "Sorry," she says again. "Don't know why I'm always being a jackass."

"I was just like that when I was your age,"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," she strokes her cheek. "Drove my dad nuts. Wild child, he'd call me. Said I was just like my mom, Josephine."

Valkyrie bites on her lower lip. "You remember her?"

"Yeah, I remember her."

"That's good," she smiles, because no one ever talks about her and she doesn't know anything about her grandma.

"Yeah," Melissa agrees.

Their gazes are drawn by Lexa who decides to jump down from the couch to lay by the TV, miraculously, Alice doesn't wake up.

"I haven't even thank you yet."

Valkyrie scratches at her chin and yawns, rolling onto her side so her face is pressed against Melissa's belly. "For what?"

"For defending my honor, I figured out you were the one who payed a visit to the guy that assaulted me."

"You remember that?" the girl frowns, "It's been like, 10 years or something."

Melissa nods. "Of course I remember sweetheart, it's not something one forgets."

"I guess not," she says, even though she doesn't even remember how many times she has been assaulted.

"I want you to leave Xena here anytime you go out there."

"Why"

"Because this way, we'll be able to see you more," she says softly. "I love you."

"Yeah," Valkyrie mutters, "Same," the girl says before she rolls to her other side just so she won't have to look at her. She stares at the tv in front of her.

"Tell me what you're thinking right now."

She knows it's a technique her dad had used a thousand times to try to make her blurt out whatever was bothering her at the time. She thinks about just going back to sleep, knows that her mum wouldn't demand an answer the way her dad would have done. That she won't force her to look at her and then make her spill her secrets.

But that wouldn't be fair. She's been so patient with her. She deserves more than her silence. She wants to revive the relationship she used to have with her family.

With some effort, she rolls onto her back again. She stares up at her mum.

She smiles down at her, tired but curious.

"I killed someone,"

The smile melts away, leaving to show traces of horror.

"Someone important to me,"

The fingers fall away from her hair. She suddenly feels colder than seconds earlier. Melissa tugs one of her own strands of hair behind an ear, fingertips chasing down her cheek before she folds her hand over her mouth. Dark eyes shining with unshed tears.

"I brought them back to life. But I still killed them," she mutters, "I was supposed to protect them."

"Why?"Melissa whispers when her hand falls away, back to her child's face, cupping her cheek. Her thumb brushing over her cheekbone. Her own tears threatening to fall.

"I needed to use something and it was connected to them, so they had to die."

"Where was Skulduggery?"

"Around. I don't know. It's not his fault ma."

Melissa sighs, a sad smile lingering in her face, the fingers on her face tightening for just a second. "I really don't want you in that world, Steph."

"Everything leading to that moment was my fault," she drags her gaze to the ceiling, it's getting dark she notices. "I needed to fix it."

"Why don't you leave that dangerous world behind now?" she begs, "You returned after 5 years, and we didn't push you because you had just come back but now," she says, "Now it's been over a year, and you won't even tell us what's wrong."

"You'd freak out with the slightest stuff."

"I just want you to talk to me, Steph."

She closes her eyes. "I'm talking now,"

Melissa takes a deep breath. "Thank you."

She open her dark eyes again.

"For telling me all this," she expands. "You might think that I don't support your choices but I just don't want to see you hurt."

"I know ma," she closes her eyes again.

Melissa learns forward and presses a kiss to her forehead."You are going to be fine, I'll help you in every step of the way. Your whole family is gonna help you, Steph."

Valkyrie pretends to be asleep.


	3. Somewhere Down The Line All The Wiring W

Valkyrie can't sleep.

It's the middle of the night and she can't sleep. The girl is staring at the ceiling, at the dark, with eyes wide open waiting for the ghosts of the people she killed to make an appearance. To come out of the shadows as beings of light and torture her to death.

The girl turns to her side letting a leg fall over the side of the bed. She keeps replaying the conversation with her mum. Regretting having said that she killed someone important to her, her mum could figure out easily that she killed Alice.

She still remembers her sister's eyes, a bright brown that had turned into a dull brown in seconds as she killed her sister, how life had escaped her body for a few moments. That terrifying moment when the artefact hadn't worked and she thought that her little sister, the person she was supposed to protect, was not coming back. She dreams about it every time she closes her eyes. She still can hear her sister screaming and crying as she died. She still can hear all the people she killed screaming in pain and begging for mercy.

There's so much she wants to tell to all the people that are now dead. That she's sorry. That she's so, so sorry, and would have taken their place if she only could. That the thought of children growing up without their family members makes her sick. That the thought of the people that lost the love of their lives makes her scream at night. That it's not fair that she got to have her sister back and everyone else was just left crying when their loved ones went to help people. That they died for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

That none of this is fair.

And she's sorry.

So sorry. It almost rips her apart. Sometimes she can't stomach the thought of ever facing anyone again. With a whimper, she rakes her fingernails over her thighs, leaving angry red marks over her pale skin. Fresh tears spill onto her cheeks.

Valkyrie stares at the window and it's so dark outside she can't see anything and she wishes she were the one who was dead.

That would have been better. Sure, Skulduggery would have been sad, her mum and her dad would mourn her, her sister wouldn't know who she is, but it would have been her own damn fault. It would have made sense. It would have been fair, the girl thinks hazily.

She gets out bed. She needs a drink, she needs something to drown out the pain until the morning. Until the light comes out and she gets to be busy.

She takes the car and drives to her favourite bar in the bad part of Roarhaven. The booze is better there, the people too. Most of them probably hate her and that means there are chances of getting her ass kicked.

She takes a seat by the bar and orders a drink.

The bartender, Nat, smiles when she sees that it's her and goes to make her the drink with a nod.

She's pretty Valkyrie thinks to herself. Pink long hair at the top that has been made into a mohawk and sides shaved. She's wearing a black trench coat, heavy boots, white jeans with lots of holes in it.

The girl decides she likes that the most. Looks good on her.

By now, Nat knows what her favourite poison is. They have become friends too, kind of, Valkyrie doesn't actually know, they just drink sometimes and chat about anything and everything. She must come to the bar at least twice a week. Most of the time she ends up fighting someone but Nat doesn't care. Says that she wants to be just like her someday and is fascinated by watching her fight. The girl doesn't think that she fights too good being drunk. Mostly it's just her getting a beating and she bracing for it, ready to feel pain.

"Here you go," Nat says putting a piece of paper in the bar and then the drink over it.

"Thanks," Valkyries smiles at her and takes a sip. The drink's strong. Just as she likes.

Nat folds her arms and leans in the counter behind her, "Are you ever going to teach me how to fight?" she asks with hopeful eyes.

"Nah," she laughs and takes another sip. "You don't want to have this life, believe me."

"It's probably better than this," the girl shrugs while looking around and goes to put another drink to an old lady.

Valkyrie continues to drink.

She can already hear whispers of Darquesse being mentioned. Whispers saying she killed people. They're looking at her. Some out of the corner of their eyes, others, most of them already wasted, do a blunt double-take.

"Wanna play a game? My brother can take over, it's not that busy."

It's 2 am on a tuesday night, of course it's not busy.

Valkyrie looks up and considers Nat's offer. It could be more fun that drinking to numbness on her own.

"Sure" she nods.

"Give me a second to get a drink," Nat smiles.

The girl pours herself some vodka with coke and then goes around the counter while Valkyrie gets up. She follows her to a table on one corner of the bar. It's kind of secluded there, people can still see her but they would have to be blatant about it.

"Okay. Here's how it goes; I ask you a question and you have to tell the truth. If you don't want to answer it, I get to drink. Truth or dare."

Valkyrie narrows her eyes.

Nat rolls her eyes, "Okay, that's not really how it goes, normally you have to do some stupid dare, but we can't really do that now, so… we'll play it like this, okay? If you answer, I don't get to drink. If you don't, I get another sip."

"Doesn't sound like much of a game."

"It'll be fun!" Nat says in a perky tone of voice that makes Valkyrie narrow her eyes again.

"What's in it for me?"

"If I don't want to answer, you get to drink. One sip versus one sip. That's fair, right?"

Valkyrie scoffs and brings her drink to her lips to take a sip, "I could just do it. Don't need your permission." she grins at her.

Nat looks back at her with a playful smile on her lips, "You are not going to leave this place until the sun comes out and me either so we are stuck here. Play the game. My brother won't care if I get wasted, I can take a night off."

It's not a game, she knows. It's just an easy way of learning a couple of secrets. She doens't want to play it because there are just too many things she doesn't want her to know about her, she knows about Darquesse of course, there's probably no one who doesn't know about it, but that's one of the only things Nat knows about her. Whenever they talk they end up talking about stupid things and making fun of the clients in the bar.

But she can't help but be curious about some things as well. It's a dangerous game, she thinks as she watches how Nat's fingers trace her lips.

"Fine," she gives in. She leans back against the chair, draws one of her knees up to rest her right wrist on it. The drink is in her left hand, half of it drank already, cold glass pressed into her sweaty palm.

"I'll start," Nat says eagerly, her whole face lighting up with a smile. "It was my idea," she argues when Valkyrie scowls at her. "Okay," she thinks for a moment. "Which do you like better, rum or vodka?"

Valkyrie blinks.

Nat snorts, hiding her laugh behind her glass of vodka. "It's just a warm-up girl! Calm down!"

"Vodka" Valkyrie answers with a cocky grin.

The other girl narrows her eyes.

"Okay! Now you go."

"I don't know" Valkyrie mutters. She looks around the bar for something that will catch her attention. There's a man sitting in the other corner with some friends. The friends are laughing hard at something but the man just stares at her with an angry look on his face, not paying attention to anything else.

Looks like she has already found someone who will give her a punch before she leaves.

"Just say the first thing that comes into your head."

Valkyrie looks back at her "What's your favorite drink to serve?"

Now it's the other girl's turn to blink. "Oh," she recovers quickly and smiles, "Soco amaretto lime, there's a boy who always orders that because of the song. I tried it and it's so good" she smiles widely while closing her eyes.

"What song?" Valkyrie asks frowning.

"Is that your question?' the girl asks when she open her eyes to looks at her with a grin.

"Yeah," she nods, her hair falling in front of her eyes.

"It's from Brand New, it's called Soco Amaretto Lime too. Good song too," the girl nods.

She knows the band, she listens to them sometimes.

"You listen to that kind of music?" she asks intrigued, because that music is kind of sad and she always looks so happy.

"Yeah," Nat says easily. The cheerfulness hasn't faded from her tone. "Love the lyrics of that band," she plays with the holes on her jeans for a long time before she looks up again. "So you are a badass good looking girl, trained by the legendary Skulduggery Pleasant himself, saved the world nearly a dozen times, friends with the most powerful mages in Ireland. Valkyrie Cain," she leans forward with a cheeky grin on her face as Valkyrie frowns at her, "Have you ever kissed a girl?"

Her eyes widen and heat races up her spine, curling around her shoulders, up her neck and to her cheeks. "What's all that shit got to do with that?" she growls.

"Nothing much," Nat laughs, "just wanted to see you blush, the almighty Valkyrie Cain blushing. So? Have you? Or can I take a shot now? Finally?"

She scowls at her boots. "No."

"What, I can't take a shot or…"

"I haven't kissed a girl, all right?" she says, looking anywhere but at the girl in front of her. "My turn, do you play an instrument?" As soon as the question leaves her lips, she's angry at herself. She'd just wanted the attention to be drawn away from her but with only the two of them, it won't take Nat very long to turn the table again with such an easy question to answer.

"Drums," she says quickly, "my turn. You ever thought about kissing a girl?"

"Fuck off,"

"You're not answering the question," Nat says cheerfully as she raises the glass to her lips.

"Fine," Valkyrie snarls before she can take a sip. "Yeah. I... I thought about it. Now stop it with the bullshit questions, okay? That is not fair."

"Why not? You can ask me stuff like that, too."

Valkyrie looks away from her, heat racing inside her again.

Nat giggles, "You should let me take a shot and stop spilling all your secrets. Go on. Ask me something you do want to know then."

Valkyrie looks down at her drink, fingers tracing the rim of the glass. She scrunches up her nose, rubs at it with the back of her left hand and then peeks at the girl. "What's your favorite memory of your mum?"

Nat goes still. The drink ripples inside the glass as her fingers start to shake a little bit. She opens her mouth, closes it again and blinks back some tears.

Valkyrie watches and she knows she just fucked up. She digs her fingernails into the palm of her hand as a punishment. "Sorry," she mutters, "you don't have to answer that, I-"

"No, no," Nat says quickly, wiping at her cheeks even though no tears have spilled. A watery smile appears in her face. She plucks at the holes in her jeans again, thinking about it, and then shrugs. "I'm sorry, she died a couple years ago. I- I just don't know. Normal things. Like," she smiles, "that she'd always be there when we got out of school when we were younger? Me and my brother. We went to a mortal school. She'd be waiting for us at the kitchen table with a cup of tea. She'd listen when we would tell her how our day went, we were in different classes so the story was always different, and then we would practice some magic. Things like that. Normal things."

Valkyrie ducks her head and nods.

"Do you miss someone who died?" Nat asks quietly.

"Drink up."

Her head snaps up, eyes wide. "You don't want to answer that?'

"No, I don't. Drink," she says nooding at her untouched drink.

Nat narrows her eyes a bit but takes a sip.

She misses Gordon the most, Ghastly too of course. Kensplecke, Solomon, Finbar. Ravel.

She misses a million things about her uncle. The way he would always let her sit by his side, the way he smelled, the way he would laugh, how he would wink just at her from across the room when he'd be talking with someone who annoyed him, the horror stories he used to tell her before going to sleep whenever she would stay at his house, the way he was with her when she'd get mad at something and he would calm her down by giving her a hug and then letting her explain herself.

He misses Ghastly because he was always there, no matter how busy, he would always make time for her and give her advice on anything she needed. Just like Gordon would have. He would never let her blame herself whenever she ended up killing a bad person.

Kensplecke, always complaining about her fighting with other people but always fixing her no matter what. Always letting her know he cared about her.

Solomon, always encouraging her, saying that she could do anything she put her mind on.

Finbar, always with a joke on his lips, making her laugh even when everything was falling apart.

She misses even Ravel, the way he used to put a warm hand on the back of her neck, the stories he used to tell about Skulduggery, how Ghastly would join him until they left Skulduggery an embarrased mess.

"It's your turn," Nat reminds her pulling her back from her thoughts.

"Why do you want to be like me? I've killed people."

It's a cruel question but she doesn't care. She watches how she flinches.

"Go ahead and get wasted," Nat says, the smile gone from her face and eyes.

Valkyrie takes a sip, enjoying how the alcohol burns her throat, the way it makes her feel a little more numb in the head. She looks around the room once more. They guy is still watching her but making an attempt to join the conversation with his friends. She lifts the drink to her lips again but Nat stops her. "One sip versus one sip, Val."

"It's gonna get warm," she says because the ice is still there but shrinking in size as the minutes pass.

Nat shrugs. She looks her dead in the eyes. "How did you become Darquesse?"

She stares back.

"By being stupid," Valkyrie answers. A small smirk teases her lips up. The question doesn't hurt as much as she thought it would. "Did I kill your mum?"

"Yes," her hands shake again. She looks more angry than hurt. 'How many people did you kill?"

Valkyrie grinds her teeth together, anger flaring in her chest and eyes glowing with her magic. "Don't know, didn't keep count."

"So, that many, uh?"

"Fuck off."

"You started it." she glares at Valkyrie now. "You are being a jackass."

"Been doing a lot of that lately, it's a stupid game," she mutters when she lifts the drink to his lips again to take another sip. She looks around the room, there's another person looking at her now. An old lady.

"Because you are afraid of talking about it?"

"I'm not afraid of nothing."

"You are," Nat voice goes quiet but she keeps on going. "I remember this time you were so wasted and someone had knocked you down to the floor, you were muttering things. Things like how sorry you were, begging the girl to keep hitting you. I had to call the Sanctuary and Skulduggery himself came for you, I had to calm him down too, saying that the person who kicked your ass had went home and that I didn't know them."

"Shut up."

"You talked about a child too," she continues, almost whispering. "That you loved them but you still killed them. You were almost crying, whimpering in the floor."

Valkyrie stares at the girl. She can't even see her past her rage. She's still talking but she isn't hearing anymore. In a fit of rage, she loses control of her magic for a second and the drink in her hand boils before jumping to her feet. The girl flinches but she storms past her, heading to the bathroom, magic flicking all over her.

She sees herself in the mirror for a moment.

She stalks closer to it and starts hitting it, over and over and over until she can't see anything anymore but blood. Sweat is running down her back now. There's glass everywhere. On the ground, on her jeans, her hands.

Nat must have followed her because the door is closed behind her. One hand clasped over her mouth and with horror in her eyes. Tears are rolling down her cheeks.

"Why are you crying? she yells at her, still so angry. "You wanted to be just like me!" she says before stalking over to her. "What the fuck do you know about anything, huh? Want to know about Darquesse? Yeah, I fucking killed people and it was all my goddamn fault!" She jabs a finger into her face, "You wanna now why I was fucking crying? Because I liked feeling powerful, feeling like no one could beat me. I thought I could control Darquesse, I thought Skulduggery could get me back if I went too far. I could have prevented everything! I knew what was going to happen. Been knowing it for a long time. But you wanna know what I did? I chose me, I chose to not leave this world. I chose to kill my sister. I chose to kill every single person,"

Nat looks up back at her. "It's still not your fault!"

"They're dead!" Valkyrie screams. "I could have stopped it!"

"You don't know that! Knowing the future doesn't mean you could have changed it,"

"I enjoyed it" Valkyrie whispers.

"Val, just stop, okay?"

"No!" she takes a stumbling step backwards. "Maybe it would have changed everything. Maybe everyone would be alive. But I didn't give up, that's on me."

"Val…" Nat reaches out to her.

She takes another step back, back pressing against the cold tiles now. "No," she looks at her booted feet. Shoulder curling in, eyes filling with tears. Her voice breaks on the next words. "And your mum… She could be alive now, she should be alive now…"

Nat takes a quick step towards her, grabs her arm and yanks her to her chest. She wraps her arms around her, holding her close. Her nose in her dark hair, breathing her in as she hugs her tightly.

Valkyrie leans into her. Rests her forehead on her collarbone and just stands there.

Her shoulders shake when she starts to cry.

…

"I'm sorry,"

They are sitting on the bathroom floor. Door closed so no one can come in.

"It's fine," Nat says while glancing at her.

She snorts, "No. It's not." The floor is full of broken glass. Her hand too. She likes how the cuts burns, how whenever she moves it pain flashes all over her hand up to her arm. "I- I'll pay for the mirror."

"Okay," Nat whispers and gets to her feet only to crouch down in front of her. Making Valkyrie look at her, "You know, if you had left this world, you wouldn't have saved it from other things. The world would have ended thanks to Melancholia, or Lord Vile, or the Remnants, or that time when mortals got magic. They were a big threat too. But you and Skulduggery saved us. If you had given up, more people would have died. It's not your fault that you had Darquesse inside of you."

She greets her teeth. It actually makes sense, but she still killed all that people. The pain of killing them is still there and it will never go away. "Skulduggery could have saved it on his own."

"Okay," she nods, "Maybe, yeah, but what if someone had gone after you? What if Darquesse still would have happened? You can't stop the future from happening. It will always find a way."

"Then why does it hurt? I still killed people." tears are threatening to fall from her eyes again. She rubs her eyes forcefully. She won't cry no more.

"You did yeah, and that is still a horrible thing. You are going to have to live with that. I'm only saying that maybe the whole world could have died and maybe you killing only two thousand was better," she gets up, "I'm gonna get the first aid kit." she says before she leaves.

"Better?" she whispers to the empty room. Head coming to rest on the wall beside her.

Valkyrie remembers stories of wars, spread out over states and countries and continents. Over days and weeks and years. She wonders how anyone survived those wars. And she doesn't mean the simple answers, doesn't mean the simple fact that those people hadn't been shot, stabbed, bombed, gassed, burned, hung, gutted, starved or whatever other cruel way of slow torture and death another human being had come up with. She knows how surviving works. It means not dying and time passing, but she doesn't understand how someone could stomach that after going through a war. After killing innocent people.

Time passing.

And not dying.

Living through it all, for however long your heart keeps beating.

It's the slowest and most painful ways of torture she's experienced yet.

How can she forget the faces of the people she killed? The faces of the people that she killed while she wasn't in control and the face of the person she killed while being in control?

And now she is supposed to accept that she saved the world? Was this what Skulduggery was trying to say? They saved the world? They failed but they still saved the world?

The door opens, pulling her out of her thoughts. Nat walks into the room with a first aid kit. She comes closer to her and reaches out a hand to lift Valkyrie up to her feet.

The girl follows her quietly to the sink. Nat turns on the water and brings her hand under the warm liquid.

She hisses as soon as it touches her skin but Nat forces it to stay under the stream.

"You are going to go home now after I fix you okay?" she lectures.

The girl nods, watching her blood going down the drain.

"Good," she turns off the tap when the water stops turning red and sets her hand on the edge of the sink. "Stay still. This is going to hurt," she warns as she takes out some tweezers from the bag.

"Do your worse," Valkyrie mutters, she doesn't care about physical pain, not anymore.

Nat nods as she begins to take out the embedded glass on her knuckles.

"What did you mean when you said that it was better that two thousand people died?" she frowns at her after a few moments of silence between them, she still can't understand how killing people is better than anything.

Nat stops to look at her, "Isn't it better two thousand than the rest of the world?" she goes back to picking out glass.

"No. It is better when no one dies." she scowls looking down.

She blinks and stops again for a moment, "Of course," she stays silence before looking up at her, "I- I didn't mean that people dying were a good thing, sorry."

"What did you mean then?"

She passes a hand throught her hair. "Look, people died, that is obviously bad. My own mum died for fuck's sake," she laughs nerviously for a moment. "I'm just saying that if you can choose to kill one person instead of nine, wouldn't you choose to kill only one?"

"I'm no god to choose who dies or who doesn't"

"That's not what I asked," she looks down and takes another piece of glass making Valkyrie hiss.

"I guess," she looks away, "But I still didn't know that after Darquesse came out someone would be able to stop her,"

"She's gone. You guys won, that doesn't matter now." she takes a deep breath. "Look, people died, that's fucked up. You regret it, you are hurting, of course it fucking hurts. But you tried your best. Blame yourself all that you want, it's still going to haunt yeah, because we carry what we cause, but in the end, it's not your goddamn fault. Like I said, the future finds its way of becoming true no matter what." Nat touches her cheek to make her look at her, "I forgive you, okay?"

"I killed your mum, how can you forgive me?" a tear falls from her eye and Nat wipes it away.

She gives her a small smile, "The future always finds a way, you can't fight destiny,"

"I can try," Valkyrie gives a watery smile back at her.

"Yeah, you can try. Doesn't mean you are going to win."


End file.
